


Resting in the Arms of the Abyss

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Friendship/Love, Interspecies Relationship(s), Loneliness, M/M, One Shot, Season/Series 03, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 08:45:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18407153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: Marcus and Lennier have things between them.





	Resting in the Arms of the Abyss

**Author's Note:**

> Another from the ancient LJ archive. This was originally supposed to be smut. The boys politely declined. Takes place after "Gray 13 is Missing".
> 
> If you're over on Tumblr, please consider following me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/) for more fic, reblogs about writing, and Professional Things I'm not allowed to mention on AO3. Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

Delenn's investiture as _Entil'zha_ , Marcus and Lennier had considered one another as professional colleagues and casual friends, nothing more. Afterward, there was something else between them. It was by Lennier's circumspect word that Marcus had challenged the Warrior who threatened Delenn and nearly lost his life in her place, and it was Lennier who had gone looking for him and carried his battered, bleeding body to MedLab. 

Marcus owed Lennier a beating, and he owed him his life. He was not willing to claim either of those debts in kind, so Lennier simply spent time with the young Ranger as he was convalescing under Dr. Franklin's care. They talked, they prayed, they meditated, and they sat in silence, first awkward, then companionable, then comforting. 

"If you had died," Lennier began.

"It would have been my own doing," said Marcus firmly. "That is the price of _denn'sha_. And," he added, with a ghost of his merry smile, "it would've been in a very good cause."

"Yes," agreed the priest, matter-of-factly, and without a hint of the ardent devotion they both knew was hidden beneath his placid surface. 

There was that knowledge between them as well, what Lennier considered a pure and perfect love and what Marcus worried was a disaster waiting to happen. He knew a thing or two about futile longing and unrequited love. It was something he had never mentioned to Lennier; he never felt it necessary. Commander Ivanova was not shy about vocalizing her irritation at Marcus's persistent attentions, and the Babylon 5 rumor mill was highly efficient, but even with all that, Marcus felt that Lennier simply knew. 

It was between them, unspoken and settled.

Some nights Lennier would come to Marcus's quarters, and the two men would talk together. Particularly on the nights when Delenn was meeting Captain Sheridan for dinner. Marcus never went to Lennier's quarters. He suspected the Minbari aide didn't actually _have_ his own rooms on the station, and that instead of sleeping six or eight hours in a bed, he simply caught cat-naps here and there between the times when Delenn needed him. That theory was more or less confirmed the first time they slept together. Platonic bed-sharing was a common practice across all three Minbari castes, particularly among family and close friends.

So he offered, because Lennier always looked tired and lately at started to look even more drawn and exhausted. The cause was obvious enough, to anyone who chose to look. But like a Ranger, Lennier was highly skilled at not being noticed. 

He slept deeply, for hours. Marcus watched him, when he wasn't sleeping himself. For the most part, Lennier remained on his back, with his arms folded over his torso, his hands clasped, breathing peacefully. Then, slowly, he began to shift and shiver. He turned onto his side, away from Marcus, and curled into a fetal ball, as though trying desperately to keep out the cold. Instinctively, Marcus pressed up against him. He draped an arm over Lennier's waist and fell back to sleep. When he awoke again, he found himself on his back, Lennier's arms wrapped around his ribcage, a bony crest pillowed on Marcus's shoulder. Sleepily, Marcus freed his arm from under Lennier's body and hugged him closer. 

Through the haze of comfortable drowsiness, he heard Lennier's voice, calm and philosophical and for once, well-rested. "How strange this is," he mused, "when you and I have nothing to offer one another except our loneliness."

"If it's all we have to give," Marcus heard himself say, as though in a dream, "maybe it's all we can accept."

Lennier sighed. "Perhaps," he said, and curled closer inside the circle of Marcus's arms.


End file.
